The Roland OP-8 interface was designed to control Roland

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

synthesizers that were equipped with a DCB (

Digital Control Bus DCB (Digital Control Bus, Digital Connection Bus or Digital Communication Bus in some sources) was a proprietary data interchange interface by Roland Corporation, developed in 1981 and introduced in 1982 in their Roland Juno-60 and Roland Jupiter ...

) interface via the

Roland MC-4 Microcomposer The Roland MC-4 MicroComposer was an early microprocessor-based music sequencer released by Roland Corporation. It could be programmed using the ten key numeric keyboard or a synthesizer keyboard using the keyboard's control voltage and gate outp ...

.Roland OP-8 Operation Manual The OP-8 and synthesizer were connected together using a DCB cable. The OP-8 and MC-4 Microcomposer were then patched together using patchcords via each of their patchbays. The transpose control on the OP-8 was able to transpose the synthesizer up or down by one octave.

DCB Equipped Synthesizers

Roland Jupiter 8 The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981. The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3300 units have ...

The Jupiter 8 needed minor changes in its circuit for setting up with the OP-8. This work was carried out by Roland. *

Roland Juno 60 The Roland Juno-60 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1982 and 1984. It followed the Juno-6, an almost identical synthesizer released months earlier. The Juno synthesizers introduced Roland's digitally control ...

When using the OP-8 with a

the connection and operation were extremely easy, as only the CV and gate input jacks, and the transpose switch were relevant.

References

{{reflist OP-8